JTS Torah Commentary

Hanukkah Amongst The Christmas Trees

Dec 15, 2014 By Burton L. Visotzky | Short Video | Hanukkah

Taking Judaism Public: From The Maccabees To Adam Sandler

Dec 15, 2014 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Short Video | Hanukkah

Study these sources in Hebrew and English

Sharing Our Individuality

Dec 15, 2014 By Sarit Horwitz | Short Video | Hanukkah

His Father’s Son

Dec 12, 2014 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Vayeshev

We stand in a very long line of children of Israel who have been fascinated with Joseph, the first person to have stood in that line. It’s hard in 2014 to see him, like the Rabbis, as a great tzadik, even if he did resist the temptation of betraying Potiphar by sleeping with his wife; brought his brothers to teshuvah (repentance) through an elaborate and risky ruse; forgave them for selling him into slavery; and apparently administered the entire wealth of Egypt without ever profiting personally from his position. Joseph seems too worldly for the role of tzadik, too complex, too much a man of action rather than reflection.

Al Hanissim

Dec 10, 2014 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Prayer Recordings | Hanukkah

In preparation for Hanukkah, we are excited to share a recording of Al Hanissim, composed by Mike Boxer of the Jewish a cappella group Six13 and performed by the Chorus of the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music.

Living into the Mission of Our Lives

Dec 5, 2014 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Vayishlah

What are our greatest fears?

Leah’s Song

Dec 5, 2014 By Yonatan Dahlen | Commentary | Vayishlah

When you fell in love
Under a copper sky,
I saw you with her.
Sweat on your gentle lip,
You were weeping
Like the wadi in the rainy season.
And in my dreams,
I caught your tears.
Each one
Before it could hit the dust at your sandals.
If only I could be your tear catcher.
I would swallow every star
If you told me
Your tears come from Heaven.

Hanukkah Reignited! 1 Wondering Jew, Lab/Shul, and Friends Light Up JTS

Dec 2, 2014 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Hanukkah

A panel discussion with Jewish Daily Forward columnist Abigail Pogrebin and Lab/Shul founder Amichai Lau-Lavie (RS ’16) cohost this panel featuring Bruce Feiler, Rabba Sara Hurwitz, Rabbi David Ingber, Rabbi Jill Hammer, and Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, and a performance with students from JTS’s cantorial school, cantors and song leaders of New York City congregations, and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Reclaiming Our Dreams

Nov 28, 2014 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Vayetzei

This week’s parashah, Vayetzei, covers a critical 20-year period in the life of our patriarch Jacob: the two decades that Jacob spends outside the Land of Israel, in Haran, in the house of his conniving uncle, Laban. They are years of treachery, deceit, exploitation, and fear. They are pivotal years in Jacob’s life—years in which Jacob confronts who he is and sees in Laban what he will become if he doesn’t pull back from the abyss. In the words of Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg, this is “the night of [Jacob’s] soul.” And, as if to drive this point home, the parashah begins with the setting of the sun and the onset of night, and ends with sunrise and the beginning of a new day.

How Full of Awe Is This Place!

Nov 28, 2014 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Vayetzei

In 1969, as a senior pursuing a BFA at the University of Memphis, my mother, Ann Kibel Schwartz, made a series of prints, including this one on themes from Genesis, as her senior thesis. She drew the images for these prints from magazines, newspapers, and print advertisements. The images were starkly modern, but their juxtaposition in collage, drawing on the ancient themes of the Torah, created an old-new whole.

Father, Have You No Blessing Left for Me?

Nov 21, 2014 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Toledot

In Parashat Toledot, the saga of our somewhat dysfunctional ancestral family continues, and included within is one of the family’s saddest and most poignant episodes. Yitzhak, scion of the family and heir to his father’s covenant with God, has just married at the age of 40. He and his wife, Rivkah, remain childless for 20 years, when, in response to his entreaties to God, she conceives. Unlike her late mother-in-law’s easy pregnancy at an advanced age, Rivkah’s pregnancy is complicated. We are told right away that “the children, the ‘sons’ in fact, were struggling within her womb” (Vayitrotzetzu habanim bekirbah; Gen 25:22). However, she does not know the reason for her discomfort and distress.

Gaza, the IDF Code of Ethics, and the Morality of War

Nov 20, 2014

This summer, Israel faced a war with Gaza, but what are the moral implications involved in such a war? The Jewish Theological Seminary’s (JTS) Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen and Dr. Moshe Halbertal, Gruss Professor of Law at New York University School of Law discuss this complicated topic.

The Bus on Jaffa Road: The Story of Middle East Terrorism and the Search for Justice

Nov 19, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

The Bus on Jaffa Road explores the 1996 incident that took the lives of JTS student Matthew Eisenfeld (z”l) and his fiancée, Sara Duker (z”l), and the couple’s legacy.

Sharing the Well: A Resource Guide for Jewish-Muslim Engagement

Nov 18, 2014 By The Jewish Theological Seminary

Sharing the Well: A Resource Guide for Jewish Muslim Engagement is designed to assist and enhance Jewish-Muslim interactions at the community level.

Who Inherits Abraham?

Nov 14, 2014 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

It is a well-known, if vaguely uncomfortable, psychological phenomenon that when looking for a partner, people are often attracted to those who are similar to their parents in appearance and personality. It is easy to see the logic behind this; when planning our futures, we seek that which is familiar to us from our pasts. This notion is often thought of as a modern phenomenon, reflecting a time when people choose their own mates. However, closer examination dates this concept back to the Torah, starting with the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.

Abraham’s Search: A Hallmark of Human Grief

Nov 14, 2014 By Allison Kestenbaum | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

In an oft-told Buddhist story, a woman loses her son and is inconsolable. She approaches the Buddha and begs him to bring her son back. He instructs her to go around the village from house to house, seeking a single mustard seed from any home where no one has died. If she can find such a mustard seed, he will restore her son to life. So the woman knocks on each door and finds that there is no household that has not experienced loss. She returns without the mustard seed but with an enlarged awareness of the universality of loss that leads her to a path of compassion and peace.

Veterans Day at JTS: Honoring US Military, Veterans, and Chaplains with Admiral Michelle Howard

Nov 10, 2014

What does the US Navy have to say about morals? Admiral Michelle Howard, the first female four-star admiral in the history of the US Navy, lectures on ethics and diversity.

Looking Upward and Outward

Nov 7, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera

Sight and vision play an important role in the two opening narratives of Parashat Vayera. 

An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the JTS Library

Nov 7, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayera

The Hebrew Bible in which this engraved frontispiece is found was printed in Venice in 1739 at the request of a physician named Isaac Foa. In addition to the Hebrew text, it contains Italian explanations of difficult passages. The engraver, Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), illustrated many non-Jewish works as well as notable borders for megillot, and later became known for his scholarly writing on natural history.

Claiming Our Ancestors: The Case of Terah

Oct 31, 2014 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

For all of us, there is no going without leaving; and so it was for Abraham: “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and the house of your father to the land that I shall show you” (Gen. 12:1) [emphasis added]. And when we leave places, we leave people as well. When Abraham departed for Canaan he left behind, among others, his father Terah. And it was always thus: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother” (2:24).